Violent crime should never be punished with a mandatory sentence, because when done after the fact, nothing is solved, and the cost is more than or equal to the benefit. Not to say there shouldn’t be preventive measures in place and some sort of punishment, but since most violent crimes are done in a fit of passion (where even a normally well adjusted person will act out of character), punishment after the fact will turn a regular person who made a mistake into a fully fledged criminal.
Now there is the question of repeat offenders, people who commit crimes that harm people regularly. Anyone who has been personally affected by a criminal will agree these people should be locked up and key thrown away. If that is you, you must ask yourself, what would punishment do to them? I am not saying nothing should happen or they should be rewarded for good behavior (although that would still be more effective, just not fair). As a regular law breaker and friend of many criminals (I admit nothing!) I can tell you the one thing fear of punishment does to us, makes us avoid getting caught by any means. No we don’t stop breaking laws, we just avoid getting caught. Once again, the cost of jail sentences out weight the benefits.
The punishment we have set up creates crafty criminals, breeds violence and antisocial behavior in one time offenders, and costs us tax payers a lot of unnecessary money. This is money that could go to preventing many crimes. How many burglaries would be prevented if a better standard of living could have been offered to the criminal in the first place? How many crimes could be prevented if free drug treatment centers and early prevention programs were funded over prisons? What about treatment over jail-time?
Now back to unfixable criminals (whatever “fix” means to you). Treatment works for some. Compensation and mediation between criminals and victims works some of the time. Prevention only goes so far. Now what about the unfixables. It sounds weird saying it because I never hear it talked about. But what happened to exile? It seems cruel to just shove the repeat rapists and bank robbers and killers on an island together and let them fend for themselves, and dropping food off by plane like food aide to third world countries. It is less cruel than putting people in expensive cages. It is less expensive than maintaining state-of-the-art facilities. It is still a punishment—no one wants to be permanently removed from society and left in an ungoverned island in the middle of nowhere. Exile is less about the punishment part but more the last result after so many failures. I didn’t know how to end this, sorry.
